Tossup, either a motorbike accident where I got T-boned by an impatient driver, point of impact was my right foot/brake lever, which was smashed up into the side of the engine, pinning my foot until the bike and I parted company as we tumbled down the road. Left me unable to walk for a few months, amazingly no broken bones just pretty much destroyed every tendon/ligament in that ankle, and gouged a bit chunk out of my ankle.

Other contender was a headon car crash I was in last year, again no broken bones but my seatbelt made a right mess of the side of my rib cage, apparently cartilage damage or something where my ribs joined. Pain was pretty funky, had to go to physio for a couple of months and get stretched which wasn't much fun. Seatbelts save lives but they don't tell you how much it bloody hurts!

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Thinking about signing up to BigPipe? Get $20 credit with my referral link.

I have had both shoulders dislocated, knee bend backwards but my worst would be when I fell of a chair and ended up with a splinter in my leg. 2 days later massive infection, 2 days after that septicemia with antibiotic resistant bacteria, black veins leading up my thigh. Ended up on this last resort toxic antibiotic that kept collapsing veins in my arm. 2 weeks in hospital, doctors told me I was 12 hours away from having my leg amputated. I thought that was the worse pain I could have felt.

3 weeks later I got a gut infection that had me pooping (tried to use another word) blood, a lot of it, I lost nearly 10 kg in a week the whole time it felt like someone was pouring acid into my intestines and tearing them out, I don't really have words to describe it. I don't think I could go through it again. Even typing this ...

a busy list of life experiences has led me (so far) to the following...

Worst pain ever?...

accidental removal of an entire big toe nail......nopestanding on a 4 inch long nail and seeing it come through the top of my foot....nopefractured ulna (x3)...nopecar crash resulting in serious head trauma and too many fractures to mention....nope meningitis.......nopemalaria.....nopeaccidentally doing the 'al bundy' scratch after cooking with chillis....nopefalling during top-rope climb resulting in broken pelvis and 'torn buttocks' (split the peach in two....you get the idea).....nopehit n run whilst cycling, face first into car windscreen....nopestitches on face and stitches on inside of mouth (see previous).....nopeadult circumcision....(don't trust girls with piercings)....almost.

It turns out the stitches, more like cable ties, from that last one are brutal. Also, I was not aware that at 3-4am each morning...if you are asleep...the average body seems to go through the motions of rising to the occasion, perhaps to check everything still works....waking up at this time feeling like your own body is trying its best to rip these stitches apart results in fetal-position inducing eye-watering agony off the charts of anything I have ever known. During this time in the brief moments of rational thought you are able to have, you can only question....'why is this happening and why isn't the pain making it go away?'. Oh and you have this to look forward to every day for the next 4 to 5 weeks. The only advantage I have from this experience is that I now reference any pain to this and nothing feels too bad as I always think....'it doesn't hurt as much as that time when.....'

Had a rear molar in fairly bad shape. Some toothache now and then, pretty sensitive, decided it was high time to upgrade my health insurance and hit up the dentist.

The dentist tried to save it, by drilling as little out as possible and putting in temporary cement to allow the nerve to calm down, as the tooth was a bit broken and the cavities were getting close to the fleshy innards. I was to come back after a few months so we could see how it was going and whether it might take a filling.

Well a week or two later that molar decided to let me know it was not going to have it. The pain sort of came and went at first, I thought, well maybe it's just a bit upset and will settle down.

Then it got real. At this point it felt much as, I imagine, would a pickaxe to the face. I tried several things to make it stop the hurting until I could get to the dentist; in the end a double dose of Tramadol and no small amount of vodka took the edge off just enough for me to stop sobbing.

As I was in no mood for a root canal, I had the thing pulled which was, to say the least, fairly intense.

Definitely of a mind to stay on top of the old dental checkups after that one.

Kidney stones ranks right up there, fortunately I have not experienced that (yet!). Something to look forward to.

Like Stu I have had a herniated disc, mine in the cervical spine (neck). That'd easily be the worst pain I have suffered, both the pain in the neck itself and the referred pain into the shoulder blade and elbow. I think the thing about it wasn't so much the intensity, which wasn't in itself a cake walk at it's worst, but the chronicity and utter resistance to pain relief. I tried a steroid injection into the spine and all manner of analgesia, none of which had any effect (I was particularly disappointed in tramadol, which causes a wide variety of reactions for different people including a pleasant high, but for me might as well have been a sugar pill for all it did). Mine went for seven months before it settled spontaneously, probably weeks out from when I would have had surgery.

NZtechfreak: Kidney stones ranks right up there, fortunately I have not experienced that (yet!). Something to look forward to.

Like Stu I have had a herniated disc, mine in the cervical spine (neck). That'd easily be the worst pain I have suffered, both the pain in the neck itself and the referred pain into the shoulder blade and elbow. I think the thing about it wasn't so much the intensity, which wasn't in itself a cake walk at it's worst, but the chronicity and utter resistance to pain relief. I tried a steroid injection into the spine and all manner of analgesia, none of which had any effect (I was particularly disappointed in tramadol, which causes a wide variety of reactions for different people including a pleasant high, but for me might as well have been a sugar pill for all it did). Mine went for seven months before it settled spontaneously, probably weeks out from when I would have had surgery.

I completely forgot I got put on tramadol as well for a while, it had no effect on me either (both positive or negative). I got put on some other drugs but I can't even remember what they are, but I do remember being put on ibuprofen at first, not surprisingly it doesn't do much for nerve pain! Mine was in the lumbar (L5/S1) so it was down my right leg and a couple of weeks later moved into my foot as well, after episode 2 I also had it in my left thigh.

When I was about 12 we were on a caravan holiday. I was standing in the doorway of the caravan, looking outwards with my hands on the door jambs. A gust of wind suddenly slammed the unlatched-back door 180-degrees and crushed the thumbnail of my left hand between the door and the jamb.

That really hurt (understatement) for weeks and was excruciating for the first few days. At that time we didn't know about the trick of piercing the nail with a redhot needle to relieve the pressure of the massive blood-blister beneath the nail that was causing the pain. The thumb swelled-up black and lifted the nail off the thumb and the whole nail fell off after 3-4 weeks.

For some reason my parents didn't take me to a doctor or A&E for this - God knows why. Probably thought nothing much could be done - but I guess a doctor would have pierced the nail.

When I look back, I think this was more painful than the big-toe gout I mentioned earlier.

Fortunately I haven't had kidney stones but a couple of friends have. I'm certain that is the biggie when it comes to pain for men - would leave my gout and thumbnail in the dust.